Originally posted by pencilrick

"First of all...Pilgrim...ya got to weed out all the tinhorns...<looks around at the player base>...And if this is all ya got...they don't look tough enough to stomp a stringy jack rabbit..."

The Duke,commenting on the possibilities of a Western MMO

Excellent, well said!

Of the two choices; historical vs film version, I'd play the film version if only for the fact there'd be more players.  All numbers being equal, I'd rather play a historical version but we won't see that ever.

Just looked over the Frontier1859 that's linked here in the thread.  So that makes 2 Wild West MMO's in developement.  Tenderfoot games has one going too.

The combat engine portion of their game is listed here on the game forums and game list as Wild West Online: Gunfighter.  Just a shoot out type setup but a taste of what they're working towards.

 Step1: Make something original. Not some poor ripoff of another games lore or that plays exactly like another MMO. Make your own lore, think up some interesting races/classes, and actually put some damn thought into things for once before launching off with "HEY LETS MAKE MMO! *codecodecode*"

Step2: Stick with it! Don't suddenly start hamfisting features and crap from other games just because they're popular.

Step3: Pick an audience and once again, stick with it. Half of MMOs fail today because they decide to try to appeal to EVERYONE and end up just crapping all over all the features to make it happen so none of them are terribly interesting. 

Is it risky? Yeah, but this is how things used to be done, and we actually have games that were mildly interesting and that were distinct from one another rather than the horrible gray mush of MMOs we have now. 

The main problem is lack of variety.  Think fantasy MMOs are grindy?   Cut the amount of enemy/dungeon variety by more than 75% and that's what you'd end up with in a Western MMO.

I mean we're not talking about Western games only having 1 or 2 enemies.  A creative team can make a lot of stuff, but inevitably the genre itself is going to limit them from being as creative and varied as they could be in a fantasy MMO.

Originally posted by Axehilt

The main problem is lack of variety.  Think fantasy MMOs are grindy?   Cut the amount of enemy/dungeon variety by more than 75% and that's what you'd end up with in a Western MMO.

I mean we're not talking about Western games only having 1 or 2 enemies.  A creative team can make a lot of stuff, but inevitably the genre itself is going to limit them from being as creative and varied as they could be in a fantasy MMO.

Not necessarily. They could always make it a Sci-fI Western, similar to Firefly.

Originally posted by Axehilt

The main problem is lack of variety.  Think fantasy MMOs are grindy?   Cut the amount of enemy/dungeon variety by more than 75% and that's what you'd end up with in a Western MMO.

I mean we're not talking about Western games only having 1 or 2 enemies.  A creative team can make a lot of stuff, but inevitably the genre itself is going to limit them from being as creative and varied as they could be in a fantasy MMO.

I'm not sure it would be as limited as you're saying.  I provided some input on Tenderfoot's initial Western MMO planning. 

Some of the professions brought up were: lawman, cowboy, soldier, townsperson/merchant, outlaw, indian, miner/prospector, hunter, farmer/rancher.  Some would start out seperate and others would branch off of a skills tree (say townsperson>merchant or entertainer).  The mix seemed to give a good go towards combat (PVE & PvP), crafting, exploration with a lot of cross training possible (say merchant / lawman).

Since you'd be talking an Open Pvp world (outside limited safe areas) you should have a good number of NPC & Player opponets and instead of dungeons you'd be looking at outlaw hideouts, indian encampments (or settlements for the other side) / wagon trains / trains.  Remember Pale Rider? They attack the mining camp? or maybe you were a hunter for the railroad and had to go shoot buffalo or clear out some mountain lions. 

I would think there'd be plenty of possibilities.

How a successful western MMO could be done:

1) Wait till a great Western IP comes out. The IP needs to be ‘now’ to capture attention.
2) Jump on the band wagon and make a MMO for it.
3) Make sure it is a MMO for everyman: casual/hardcore, adult/family, solo/grouping, PvE/PvP, crafting/loot.

Oh I never said it would be any good did I? :)